Implementing Prevention Programs

After reading the suicide prevention hand out, I found it to be alarming. Suicidal preventions have traditionally been implemented by things such as suicidal hot lines, which there are over 1,000 in the United States. These hot lines are equipped with trained personal to talk with the distressed or someone showing concerns for someone who may be contemplating suicide. An additional prevention that is utilized is awareness programs implemented in the schools that discuss risk factor, warning signs, and what to do if you feel that a friend or a peer may be showing these alarming signs. What is alarming to me is that despite the increase of implementation on these prevention plans there has not been a significant amount of decreasing suicides rates. I feel that this could be a very hard thing to detect at times but many who are contemplating suicide do show warning signs. Again I feel that with stronger communication ties between teachers and parents this would ultimately help parents stay more connected with their children when away from home. Some of the warning signs of someone contemplating suicide are withdrawal from peer, delinquency or truancy from school, and possibly an increase in aggression. My idea on the truancy and frequent absences from school are factors that are very easily to pick up on due to the fact that not only are the teachers aware of this but other administers are as well. When this is occurring, I believe that this is an opportune time for the student counselors to maybe schedule a few times to meet with the student as well as up the parents. I do agree with the increase implementations of school programs that teach students awareness and severity of suicide but maybe along with that, a reach out program can be preformed multiple times throughout the year, almost like a mental wellness check. This could be a very standardized multiple choice questionnaire with this simple questionnaire it could be possible to identify students that maybe a risk of symptoms leading to suicide. This maybe already in practice but we need to look into ways to identify these at risk students. Most who ultimately commit suicide have shown warning signs and it was not picked up on. Even if this questionnaire saved one life it would be worth it.